Working together the Vidiians, the VOY crew, the Talaxians, the Vaadwaur and the Krenim are able to re-create an ancient FTL Engine the old Conclave had that was able to move much faster than any current Warp Drive or even the League's FTL.

This new drive (Quantum Slipstream) is powered by resources found in the Periphery (not available in the Alpha Quadrant) and the one prototype they build begins testing for use on Voyager. With Denara Pel assembling a Conclave delegation they prepare to leave for Known Space to let Starfleet know about all that they've encountered as soon as the QSS is ready.

However, before they can go a major complication arises.

We cut to a Talaxian merchant ship/mining ship just minding its own business, the Captain has a pet that's a counterpart to a dog, etc, when a large object would appear on their scanners emerging from some kind of unknown rift near the ship, throwing it out of control.

VOY would pick up the automated distress beacon and send an away team to investigate.

Harry would be looking around in one area and find evidence of a fight with energy weapons, but no signs of disintegrated bodies on the Vidiian scanners (they use those now instead of Tricorders) and then locates one member of the crew at the communications, except he's dead. He looks like he was mauled by some vicious animal.

He would then go deeper and see several other crew members who have all been killed in the same way, and several of them look like they were fighting something when they died. He doesn't realize there's something in the chamber with him, and it seems to have extra "bits" on it that are artificial.

He then finds one sole surviving Talaxian who locked himself in a locker to survive, but he's in severe shock. As he calls the medical team on his communicator, Harry hears a growl and turns around just in time to barely dodge a tackle by the Captain's pet, which has been turned into a vicious killer. It has robotic enhancements and shoots tubules out of its mouth. It finally gets him pinned down, but before it can rip him up the Talaxian picks up Kim's phaser and kills the thing.

The survivor then tells the rescue team that a humongous vessel appeared out of no where and knocked their ship out of control before it beamed 2 of its crew onto the mining ship. They transported several of the mining crew away, but the remaining crew fought back and killed one of them with their weapons, but somehow the second one was unaffected by them (adaptative shield) but the Pet attacked and killed the other one with its' teeth and claws. Before it died the alien injected the pet with something that mutated it into a bio-mechanical monster; it then slaughtered the rest of the crew except him since he hid himself.

He'd show them the corpse of the alien the pet killed before it mutated: It's a Borg.

Scorpion

We'd open with the same teaser: A Borg ship (in this case, a Sphere) would contact some unknown force, and we'd see the Borg Sphere being blasted apart by it.

VOY realizes the huge ship must've been a Borg Cube, and the rift it emerged from was a Transwarp Conduit like the ones Lore’s Borg used in “Descent”.

VOY and the Conclave then contact the League and give them their information on the Borg in hopes to mobilize all the major forces. The League then begins sending out patrols to investigate these new intruders.

VOY would go searching when they receive information from League Sensor Outposts. It’s very tense, like in "Descent" where the ENT-D was always monitoring for Borg activity.

Eventually they find something, and not only is it a Borg signature, they read something else that the League Computer Servers they're interfacing with can identify when VOY's own computers cannot: Fluidic.

They arrive and find the same Borg Sphere from the teaser partially destroyed and maybe one or two dead Fluidic Bio-Ships as well. The League sends a battalion of troopers onboard the Sphere and VOY sends its own team to investigate on a shuttle.

This is mainly the same as what happened in VOY, where they encounter a Fluidic soldier, Harry gets infected, etc.

They leave, but someone else had crawled onboard their shuttle, a female Borg.

She reveals herself and tries to assimilate them as the shuttle leaves the Borg ship, but at the same time a group of Borg corner the Fluidic on the Sphere and assimilate it; As it is assimilated it lets out a psychic "scream" that overloads the Borg it is now connected to which causes a massive "system crash" that terminates the Collective onboard the Sphere. The female Borg is far enough away on the shuttle that she doesn't die but her connection to the Borg is weakened.

She tells them she is Seven of Nine and as she is alone and outnumbered/outgunned she will not harm them. When asked about what the Borg are doing in this area of the galaxy she informs them that the Borg recently picked up energy emissions from this part of the Beta Quadrant that interested them, so they sent a scout force to investigate.

(The emissions are the energies the Fluidics gave off in the Fluidic Wars 2000 years ago, it just took that long for the energy emissions to naturally make it far enough to be picked up by a Borg ship)

The VOY crew figure out from what information the League and Old Conclave records have on the Fluidics that they are all powerful telepaths (explaining the anti-telepathic stance of the Devore Empire) that have their own form of a Collective although each Fluidic is an individual unto themselves. When the Borg tried to assimilate one of them the Fluidic's own telepathic mind reacted badly to being forcibly grafted to the Collective, and "self-destructed", but since it was linked to the immediate Borg when it died the psychic shock went into them as well and killed them all.

So it seems that being assimilated causes Mutually Assured Destruction for the Fluidics and Borg, and since the Borg can't assimilate them they intend to now destroy them.

Thus the season ends on the prospect of an all-out war between the Borg and the Fluidics, with the Deep-Beta Quadrant as the battlefield.

For the S4 premiere the VOY crew, League and Conclave are wondering what they heck they're going to do now with the possibility of the Deep-Beta Quadrant becoming the battlefield for an all-out Borg-Fluidic War. The VOY crew in particular are alarmed because to them this is the beginning of the dark future they experienced when they were hurled 30 years into the future in “Tomorrow’s Voyager”.

Also, the VOY crew wonder what to do with the drone they picked up, since the Fluidic overload that killed the Sphere also terminated her connection to the Collective. Janeway decides that since she's not Borg anymore she gets to live, but under heavy security.

While trying to help Harry, the Vidiians try several new medical treatments they used in the last Fluidic Invasion to try and combat the Fluidic DNA infestation. They get the idea that a nanite attack may work, so they extract some from Seven (who's still semi-conscious) and experiment until they got it since Borg technology has the only nanites advanced enough.

They then find out from the League that there's a bigger build-up of dimensional rift energies (the energy given off whenever the Fluidics enter or exist those dimensional rifts they can make) and the Fluidics are using them to enter a variation of their home Fluidic Space (which is kind of like B5 Hyperspace in this version) to travel without being detected and then attack the Borg in regular space when they re-emerge. The readings aren’t exactly the same as from the Fluidic Wars, meaning they can’t make a rift back to the original Fluidic Space they emerged from for some reason.

They track the battles down, coming across lots of smaller Borg ships that have been damaged or destroyed and lots of dead Fluidic bioships as well (they're equally matched) until they find out the Borg have assimilated an entire planet as the scout force's Base of Operations.

They're trying to build a Transwarp gateway on this side so they can summon unlimited Borg reinforcements from the Delta Quadrant (since the Transwarp Conduit the Scout force used to arrive was more or less a one-way shot).

Janeway then decides to wait until the Fluidics have overwhelmed the Borg Scout force (which is only one Cube and maybe a few smaller probe ships and that one Sphere that was destroyed earlier) and use their planetkiller attack to destroy the Borg planet.

Seven tries to stop them when she wakes up, breaking out of sickbay and into engineering, but the crew manage to stop her (maybe Kes with her TK holds her in place without having to touch her). With the last of the Borg in this quadrant gone she goes despondent.

VOY tests out the nanites as a weapon on the Fluidic ships which destroys them. While the Fluidics pull back to analyze their destroyed ships' to find out what the heck happened Voyager and the combined Conclave/League fleet retreat.

It's postulated that the Fluidics may find a way to neutralize the nanites, but at least now the Conclave have a weapon that once again works on the Fluidics. The League wants it but the Conclave then puts them in their place saying that they need it for further research, and if the League tries anything they'll destroy the nanites and all their data on them. The League isn’t willing to call their bluff.

The Doctor then gives them the sad news that while they were able to create the nanite weapon from their treatment of Harry, it was too late to save him and he had died from the Fluidic DNA infection.

Secretly the Conclave gives the nanotech data to VOY for safekeeping, and with that and their new crewmate (Seven) as well as the Concave delegation waiting to make contact with the Federation, VOY activates the Slipstream Drive and sets a course for their last friendly location, DS9.

However, since this is around 2375/2376, they have a surprise waiting for them back in the Alpha Quadrant...

Characters

Kes by this point is now a full adult (she was a 10 year in S1, a young teenager in S2, about 17 in S3 and by S4 she's early to mid twenties). She also has more control over her Telepathy and Telekinesis, and as a side-effect of being exposed to chroniton radiation in "Year of Hell" she now has occasion telepathic flashes of the future (she sees through her future self’s eyes or even is projected into her future self at times).

This version of Seven wouldn't be the "I want to go back to the Collective" version but more like a combo of Hugh and maybe Kai from LEXX since her past memories are totally gone and she wasn't openly conscious of what was happening to her all these years. She wouldn't even remember her human name (and how a human who wasn't from Wolf 359 got to the Borg years before Wolf would be a mystery). Her skin color and hair start to grow back but other implants stay in just so the Feds don't accidentally activate that Borg self-destruct.

Similar to what was originally planned at the end of Voyager's 4th Season.

(For those who don't know the original plans were for Voyager to make it home at the end of Season 4).

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Why was that plan never carried out?

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The DS9 producers wanted the Dominion War wrapped up in WYLB. One of the discussed endings was that they would have Voyager return home to take over the Dominion War. It was mentioned in Star Trek: Action.

Similar to what was originally planned at the end of Voyager's 4th Season.

(For those who don't know the original plans were for Voyager to make it home at the end of Season 4).

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Why was that plan never carried out?

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The DS9 producers wanted the Dominion War wrapped up in WYLB. One of the discussed endings was that they would have Voyager return home to take over the Dominion War. It was mentioned in Star Trek: Action.

I'm starting the betting pot right now for when the inevitable Niner/Voy Hater will pop with a "thank god those morons didn't get their filthy claws into my perfect DS9!"

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Fighting the Dominion would have only made Voyager better. Plus, with all their experience fighting impossible odds against everyone throughout the Delta Quadrant, the Dominion would have had a very serious problem.

anwar, you don't really mention how most of the characters grow/change over the course of these seasons. what of their interpersonal relationships with one another? you mention the b'elanna triplets dying, so is she only part of the show for the first season? do harry, tom and b'elanna all become best friends by season 2? since there's not much change in the overall characters of b'elanna and locarno (from paris) do they still end up together after being antagonistic to each other early on? what happens with seska? does everyone stay on board after seven arrives?

interesting take overall. i'm not sure i really agree with it, but it's an interesting revision nonetheless. i'm just more interested in the character outcomes than overall plot changes.

VOY goes back to the Alpha Quadrant using the Slipstream Drive and plot co-ordinates that will land them near DS9. When they get there their scanners detect over ten times the normal amount of vessels than should be there, including Romulan Warbirds.

Wondering what the hell is going on, and receiving some Fed messages about wartime status they fear that it's a Romulan Invasion and in the state they're in (powering up the Slipstream Drive took up almost all power except for what they could spare for life-support and basic stuff) a light Cardassian ship would take them out.

But then they see the Romulans arriving to pick them up along with Fed and Klingon ships, they're more confused than before when the Fed Admiral (Ross?) mentions "Good thing we picked you up before the Jem'Hadar did."

Next would be a homecoming episode where the VOY crew are taken to Earth for debriefing. They learn about the Dominion, the Cardassian alliance, and the destruction of the Maquis. Chakotay and the surviving Maquis take this hard and to make matters worse they realize now they're likely to just end up in prison for their actions prior to being on VOY.

But Starfleet tells them that Janeway spoke up on their behalf, and more importantly Denara Pel and the Conclave delegation also spoke up for them and the Feds are willing to make concessions in exchange for peaceful relations with a new potential ally.

Tom would then go (with Kes) to tell Harry's family about what happened to him, while B'Ellana's family would learn of how they now had three daughters and two are dead. The Doctor would undergo examination for his sentience and Seven of Nine would be a big point of interest.

Going over everything VOY encountered in the Beta Quadrant, especially the Fluidics, Starfleet wonders what to do especially with the Dominion situation happening now. They also are studying the Slipstream drive.

Due to their services Locarno/Paris is granted an official commission and the Maquis are granted Amnesty. Chakotay decides to re-enlist to fight the Dominion, Denara and co are put on maximum security to keep them safe from potential Dominion assassination or capture. B'Ellana decides to just resign as she's been through enough and is grateful to be home, the whole experience having helped her reconcile with her issues over her hybrid nature. Tuvok sees his family on Vulcan.

I think I'd do something radically different and have Seven revealed to be Annika Ransom, daughter of the missing Captain Ransom, who was lost years ago when Ransom's wife took Annika with her on a science mission and never returned (like the Hanson's in Seven's official backstory). Seven wouldn't really feel that bad since she doesn't remember her father at all and she's mad at her mom for endangering her.

We jump one year ahead with a text explanation of how Janeway, Tom, Tuvok and Chakotay fought in the Dominion War and are now recalled to Starfleet HQ for a new mission.

They're surprised to see each other again (they all fought separately). Tom is a Lt. Cmdr, Chakotay is a full Commander and Janeway received a promotion to Captain and is in command red now, having had her own ship in the war.

They learn that Starfleet has decided to make Voyager into a sort of memorial ship/museum ship since it was near the end of its operational lifespan anyways and was really jury-rigged from the Vidiian, Talaxian and Krenim tech they grafted onto it to make repairs. They took out the Slipstream Drive to study and have discovered that the resources that help stabilize and power it (which is different from Dilithium) don't exist in the Alpha Quadrant. They're able to synthesize it but not in large enough amounts to mass-produce the Slipstream Drive.

They have built some smaller ships for testing their own Slipstream drives and have constructed large mining/transport vessels while speaking with the Conclave Delegation. They've agreed to open relations with the Alpha Quadrant and will return to the Deep-Beta Quadrant now so to help in opening trade negotiations for the resources needed in the Slipstream Drive. Starfleet has prepared a new vessel to escort them home and the Conclave Delegation have requested that the crew of VOY be in command.

VOY has enough of the synthesized Slipstream material for 2 Slipstream usages: 1 to go back to the Deep-Beta Quadrant and 1 to go back home to deliver a status report of whether they were successful or not in gaining access to the needed resources.

The crew agree and Starfleet christens their new vessel, a new class known as the "Intrepid-class", "Voyager" in honour of its predecessor.

And so Captain Janeway, 1st Officer Chakotay, Helmsman Lt-Cmdr Paris, Tactical Officer Lt-Cmdr Tuvok, Science Officer Seven, the Doctor (uploaded from the Old VOY to the New VOY) and Kes take off to go back to the Deep-Beta Quadrant with their new mission.

Emerging outside the edge of the Periphery from a navigation error, VOY detects another Fed ship heading for them from beyond the Periphery: It’s the Equinox.

Wondering what another Fed ship is doing so far from home they find the badly damaged ship and Captain Ransom. Janeway decides not to immediately tell him that they have his missing daughter on-board and that she was a Borg for a long time, and Seven (who has no memory of her father anyways) just goes with it.

In this version the Equinox accidentally found the Barzan Wormhole that deposited them far from the Federation (The boundary between the Delta and Beta Quadrants) where they were attacked by the Kowtowan Guard, etc and have been making their way home ever since. They detected the bizarre energy emissions from the Periphery/Central Core regions (the result of the Fluidic Wars and the more recent Borg invasion) and were heading there hoping for advanced life.

Janeway figures that since they only have enough Slipstream fuel to go back to the Federation once, they may as well continue through Slipstream to the Neo-Conclave and tractor beam the Equinox with them until they all go home together.

On the way there Ransom finds out about Seven and explains what his ex-wife and Annika were doing out in space where they were captured by the Borg in the first place. It was the same reasoning for the Hansons’ search for the Borg in the regular universe. He doesn't seem too distressed over Annika's fate and is more impressed that she survived at all (he's a lot colder in this version).

The VOY crew eventually find out about the Nucleonic lifeforms Ransom was using for fuel, and he pretty much tells them he knew they were sentient all along but he was willing to kill them to go home and thought data collected on the enhanced warp drive would help Starfleet more so why not? (He's a LOT colder)

Combining the Equinox's enhanced drive with the Slipstream tunnel they're in, the Equinox gets to the Deep-Beta Region before VOY does, and upon arriving Janeway vows to hunt Ransom down because now the Nucleonic lifeforms are attacking the new VOY as well.

Unwelcome

When VOY gets back to the Neo-Conclave they find out that things haven't exactly been quiet in the time they've been gone (which is like 18 months or so).

The AIs of the Lokirrim Union have become tired of the way that they get treated by their masters, and renegade AIs that do not have the program blocks preventing them from harming their masters have begun a revolt against the Lokirrim. These free AIs are able to remove the program block in other AIs causing more of them to join their cause. Some AIs from the League have also broken away/been “infected” to help in this AI War.

Of course, who created these AIs with no program blocks is a mystery (the original free AIs are those robotic warriors from "Prototype").

There's a lot of tension between the Neo-Conclave and the League now due to this, because the Lokirrim seem to have evidence that all the worlds where the AIs first began to rebel were planets also visited by VOY when they were exploring the Central Core almost two years ago, leaving the Lokirrim to suspect that maybe VOY had something to do with it, and they especially suspect the Doctor.

The Neo-Conclave thus is not exactly happy to see the VOY crew again. And to make matters worse the Nucleonic lifeforms have followed Ransom and VOY and are now attacking other vessels in the region as well because a lot of ships have been going over the same spots as the warp trail left by Ransom, and the Nucleonic lifeforms have catalogued the energy signatures that those ships give off too and are following them/attacking them.

It gets worse as the AI Revolutionaries have used stolen League data to take over a Old Conclave dig site where the League was uncovering an ancient Starship from the Fludic Wars. It's basically a giant missile launcher armed with still-working Null Bombs/Warheads, each one capable of destroying a planet in one shot.

It was a joint-venture between the Old Conclave and the Voth, to counter the Fluidics’ own System-killer attacks. (In this version the Fluidic ships form a ring around the central vessel with the ships all pointing outward in every direction and the energy wave they let out destroys entire Systems and not just planets)

It's still being repaired and upgraded for robot usage so the League, Conclave and Lokirrim have time to stop the AIs before they can use it. The countdown is on.

Okay, it's been two weeks. Sorry for the delay, I'm actually writing this from Orlando Florida (family trip).

Machines behind the Man

VOY finds out that Ransom is helping the AI Revolutionaries and after capturing some of the Equinox crew they find out they've been getting orders from Think Tank, who were the ones the League hired to analyze the ancient ship to begin with.

The AIs also discover the remains of the Borg Expeditionary Force from before and try to reverse-engineer it but accidentally revive some dead drones in the process.

The Neo-Concave find out that all the worlds VOY was accused of inciting to revolt were also visited by Think Tank or had dealings with them.

So VOY track down Ransom to Think Tank and confront the Robotic Scientist there; they find out he's really just a drone, always has been, Korris was controlling him and using him to talk to the Revolutionaries. He built the original rogue AIs and has been manipulating the revolt all along.

His reasoning is that as a scientist he wanted to see what kind of civilization they'd set up. Also, he is in fact over a thousand years old and was the one who introduced the robotic technology to the races of the Deep-Beta Quadrant to begin with. This has been a very-long term experiment for him. He gives mention that he himself was inspired to do so from another source.

This has all been transmitted to the Revolutionaries who choose to stand down (the League and Lokirrim do as well). Due to Korris' deception being revealed all sides are willing to talk now.

The robots who want to stay independent are allowed to do so while the ones who wanted to go home (since they only left due to the revolt turning people on them) are allowed to do so, with more open-minded Politicians willing to work out agreements with them now that the virus has made them more free-minded. Peace is at hand, until…

Borg Redux

Everyone gets the message from the robots that have been taken over by the Borg tech, warning them that the Borg drones are using their tech to rebuild the Transwarp Conduit and summon more Borg from the Delta Quadrant.

Ransom is there, observing the Borg (curiosity, and because he knows VOY and his daughter Annika will come).

In the midst of the battle between the revived Borg and the combined League/Conclave force, which includes the use of the Null-Bomb Launcher on the infected planetoid, VOY and Equinox are sucked into the incomplete Conduit and deposited in the Delta Quadrant.

Because the Conduit was incomplete and unstable, Equinox and Voyager emerge in different areas of the Delta Quadrant.

In this version, the DQ is very much a wasteland with nothing but Borg-scarred worlds and refugee fleets of survivors who survive mainly because their ships and technology are less advanced than the tech already assimilated by the Borg when their worlds were first attacked. The Borg pretty much see them as less than nothing and leave them alone. Seven comments that the Borg may just be leaving them alone in the idea that they will inhabit some new world and the multiple survivor races will work together to create new technologies and ideas that the Borg can them come in and assimilate.

IE, it's a Borg breeding program with no one realizing it.

After going around looking for Ransom and trying to co-relate any data they got on the unstable Conduit with other DQ survivors to perhaps try and stabilize it or make their own to return to known space, VOY learns that there is at least one Civilization, the Arturians, that has survived thus far and heads there to see if they know anything.

Turns out they've survived for two reasons: They hunt down individual ships of advanced races and set them up for the Borg to take them so they'll leave them alone, and they form conscript fleets of unwilling alien races to defend themselves from Borg attacks so anything the Borg assimilate is from those other races and not from the Arturians, meaning if they're interested they go after those races and not the Arturians who conscripted them in the first place.

The greater of two evils

VOY and Equinox both find themselves reluctantly conscripted into a massive armada put together to defend from a Borg Cube that has finally decided to investigate one of the Arturian's own planets, meaning if they fail the Arturians are doomed. Thus lays the moral quandary: the normal populace are unaware of what their army has been doing and are innocent. If the armada fails they will all be assimilated once the Borg decide to really attack the Arturians. But they cannot ignore how the Arturians had been sacrificing others to save themselves.

They don't have time to fully answer these questions as the Borg attack and they are forced into the fight. They do manage to do enough damage with their various different weapons (Borg can't adapt to all of them at the same time) but upon its defeat (and the destruction of 1/4 the armada) the Cube just leaves rather than fight to the end, much to everyone's puzzlement.

Equinox has been critically damaged, and its crew are transferred to Voyager, since to the Arturians they can work together, being the same organization. This leads to conflict between the crews, especially between Ransom and Janeway who is disgusted with how Ransom is trying to act paternal to Seven.

More conscript ships are arriving to reinforce the fleet in case the Borg return, and Ransom tries to convince Janeway to just abandon the conscripts and take them back to the Deep-Beta Quadrant through the unstable Conduit, since he's combined their data with his and he knows how to stabilize it and enter it. Janeway is unsure since stabilizing it leaves the possibility of the Borg themselves using this new conduit, and she doesn't want to abandon the other conscripts.

Meanwhile, Seven keeps having Borg related nightmares, but doesn't know what they mean.

Before they can reach an agreement, the Cube returns, but with friends. Other Cubes are there as well and they all combine together to form a Massive Fusion Cube (8 cubes together).

The whole time this was a Borg trick, to send in one Cube to learn while testing out their new Fusion Cube as a weapon (possibly against future battles with the Fluidics).

The battle is a slaughter, and when things are looking bleakest the conscripts receive a transmission that unlocks all the controls the Arturians had put on their ships and an armada several times the size of the conscripts arrives, entirely made of Arturian vessels.

They have decided that the Fusion Cube cannot be stopped by the conscripts and rather than have them all die they are released, while the Arturians will use their advanced weaponry for the first time to fight the Borg. Janeway finally makes her decision to leave and head for the unstable Conduit.

As they leave, Seven comes to Janeway to tell her she's deciphered her dreams: she'd unwittingly been overhearing the Collective through some leftover Borg tech in her brain. They scanned that VOY was a Fed ship and were wondering how they got to the DQ and to that end had sent a second Borg vessel after them, a Tactical Sphere (not the smaller FC one).

Farewell

They get shot enough to damage the shields and Seven is beamed onto the Borg vessel and re-assimilated while VOY is using Ransom's equations to stabilize the Conduit, it works but the conduit is shrinking. They got through with the hope that the Sphere will follow them and they can get Seven back, but instead the sphere hits them with a tractor beam while they've just entered the conduit and is dragging them back.

But, as it turns out Seven's time away from the Collective had given her enough independence combined with her knowledge of the Borg to perform a miracle: she is able to influence the Collective on the Sphere for 1 second. But 1 second is all she needs.

She orders the ship closer to the Conduit, which is now too small for it to fit through. It collides and combines with the Conduit which cancels both out, destroying the Sphere and the Conduit. VOY survives due to Seven's sacrifice.

Ransom then breaks down and admits what a poor father and Captain he was, and puts himself in Janeway's custody.

The final image of Ransom in this series shows him in a Jail Cell holding two photographs: one of his family (his wife and young daughter Annika), and one of Annika's adult borg self, Seven of Nine.